We had planned to sail into Hiva Oa today to get our papers in order and our spare parts that were shipped from the US, but we decided to wait another day because today was the first day after a holiday weekend (the Monday after Easter being a state holiday).

I got some projects out of the way. One was, we had overtightened the boom once while at anchor so that it was rubbing against the bimini, this created a 10 inch tear in the bimini fabric. I sewed on a patch to repair the damaged section.

Secondly, I forgot to mention this earlier, as we were motoring on our final approach to this anchorage, we had an oil pressure alarm go off. I had checked the oil in the crankcase and there was none, but there was about 5 quarts of motor oil in the sump under the engine. I had determined that there was a slow leak of motor oil coming from the oil pressure sensor... one drop at a time.

So today I pumped all 5 liters of motor oil from the sump into containers, and Pascale and I started mopping up the sump area under the engine with paper towels.

I removed the leaky oil pressure sensor and applied epoxy to it in the hopes of stopping the leak.

Tomorrow, before we leave the anchorage, I'll put the epoxied pressure switch back in place and see if it still drips oil.

Oh, and the refrigeration is getting a new lease on life. Dennis on sailboat Evergreen had Freon and equipment on board so that we could get our refrigeration working again. I used J.B. Weld epoxy to seal the holes in the evaporator that Antoine had made. Then Dennis and I spent the better part of the afternoon purging the system and adding freon. After a few days of trial and error, with a little less, and then a little more, freon, we now have a refrigeration system that seems to work as well as new. Today was the first day that our refrigeration hit the 20 degree F setpoint that we set for it. Looking good!

Between projects we had some time to have some fun, we took the dinghy for a ride to another cove on the island, where we explored the rocks, observed clans of hermit crabs, and collected sea shells, while Antoine body surfed and made "dinosaur tracks" in the sand, and John flew a kite in the light breeze.